More Chatter on ChatGPT, Integrity

Plus, notes from the U.K. Plus, Honorlock says it passed data audit. Plus, stuff from Zimbabwe and a silly cheating video.

Issue 174

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More to See Regarding ChatGPT

The media coverage of ChatGPT, the fancy new AI-writing tool, continues - with several pieces out now on whether computers can catch what other computers have written.

Several of those stories feature Turnitin saying, yes - they can.

This one from EdSurge is my favorite. And not just because it mentions The Cheat Sheet and quotes me.

I mean, not just because of that.

It’s a great piece because it shows that students are already using ChatGPT to cheat and points to what I suspect is the future of essay mills, at least until Turnitin and others add AI detection to their services. It says that a college sophomore has been using ChatGPT to draft the papers and editing and correcting them for money:

A finance major, [the student] also smelled opportunity. His pockets weren’t exactly flush. So, early on, before it had caught on, Alex sold a handful of papers—he estimates about five—for “a couple of hundred bucks.” Not a bad rate for a couple hours of work.

Yup. The student also told EdSurge that he knew other students were using ChatGPT to turn in papers too.

On detecting ChatGPT, EdSurge says:

It turns out that the makers of TurnItIn, one of the most widely used plagiarism detection tools, aren’t breaking a sweat. “We’re very confident that—for the current generation of AI writing generation systems—detection is possible,” says Eric Wang, vice president of AI for the company.

They’re not alone. Two companies I’ve not heard of also spoke up saying essentially the same thing. In this article, a company called originality.ai said they can find it. And a company called PackBack issued a press release saying they can too.

For those who want to curtail the use of ChatGPT in academic misconduct, that’s welcome news.

Then there’s this fun article on cheating and Chat GPT over at the Wall St. Journal. The AI bot passed the AP English exam, though, again with obvious content errors.

This conversation isn’t over.

Three Notes on Cheating from the U.K.

• This article in The Telegraph is from October - don’t judge, I said I’m behind. The headline is “Remote Exams Fuel Surge in Cheating as Rogue Students Pay for Answers.” As such, it’s not really news. We know this. Even so, the piece looks lengthy, but absent a subscription to The Telegraph, I cannot tell you more of what’s in it.

• A local U.K. paper, Romford Recorder, has a story about a head teacher who’s been banned indefinitely for being caught on video helping his students cheat exams some four years ago.

• A few news sources covered the release of data showing that penalties for cheating the “GCSE and A-level exams” in 2022 were up a healthy 43%. Some 4,335 sanctions were delivered for misconduct in 2022 and most of the increase is due to mobile phone use. Though it’s still a small percentage overall, it’s good to remember that these are just the test-takers who were caught and penalized.

Honorlock Says it Passed Data Security Audit

Remote test integrity provider Honorlock issued a press release this week saying the company:

has completed the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) System Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type 2 audit.

Fortunately, they translate this and say it means:

that Honorlock has the appropriate and correct system controls in place to safeguard customer data and that the system controls are operating as expected.

And that:

Successful completion of the audit provides customers with the confidence that Honorlock’s systems have been tested, confirmed and have the correct controls in place to ensure information and data are protected against unauthorized access.

That’s great.

Someone at Chegg should Google “American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) System Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type 2 audit” before it’s - oh wait. Never mind. (See Issue 161).

Two Other, Quasi-Random Things to Share

In the continued spirit of crossing things off my “I should do something with this” list, here are two more items.

• Officials in Zimbabwe say they nabbed 588 people cheating a recent national exam, though they expect “there are more who will be caught during the marking period.” The primary issue is leaked exams.

• A few weeks ago, this silly little cheating video made the rounds. And because people were watching it, other people just had to write about it. It’s a fun watch but as an actual cheating tactic - no way. No chance.